


past all decent hours

by Ashling



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: I did what I did and I have no regrets, M/M, Period Typical Everything, this is not a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: This is not a happy ending. But it is, at least, a moment he can feel turning into a memory. He has had worse.





	past all decent hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [herequeerandreadytofight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/herequeerandreadytofight/gifts).



The bakery is dead when Alfie limps back inside for one last check. He likes this, this twilit time when all the men have gone home to their families and it's just him and the distillery. The massive barrels, the molasses and the yeast. The shadows long and deep. He likes having a territory down so sharp he can make out a new detail as small as a badly-stacked bag of sugar. Prodding it back into place with his cane, he takes one last look and moves on, up the stairs, past the office doors, pausing just outside his own office. The door is ajar.

Silently, he pushes the door open. It glides inwards on well-oiled hinges, as Alfie grips his cane tighter and winds up for a massive swing at the figure in the chair. 

Turning just in time, the man ducks under the sweep of the heavy metal head of the cane and hurls himself at Alfie, knocking him flat on his back and pinning him in some kind of wrestler's hold, heavy across his stomach and his left shoulder. He's strong and fast and Alfie sometimes has to pause at the top of the stairs now for a cough, so he knows there's no use in struggling. Nevertheless, he sinks his teeth into the meat of the man's arm through his shirt.

"Ow." Tommy doesn't move. Suddenly, now that it's Tommy, the body on him is distinct, it's a knee and a thigh and an arm and a hand, rather than just a weight. Alfie tries to ignore this by clinging to sheer annoyance.

"Fucking hell, Tommy."

"I always wanted to know if I could," says Tommy, climbing off of him and flicking on a lamp.

"You should have tried earlier, mate. Now you'll never find out." Alfie drags himself up and into a chair by the door, ignoring the hand Tommy holds out, ignoring the slight sharpening of those pale eyes in response to Tommy not understanding. Let him be confused, then. Good. Fuck him. "Was the Monday meeting not soon enough for you? Or did you get your dates mixed up? It's Thursday at fucking eleven, past all decent hours."

"The right time, then." Tommy settles in the opposite chair and clears his throat. "There's something you should know. I wanted you to hear it from me."

Alfie ekes out a derisive sound from the back of his throat, and only barely manages to stop it from breaking out into a cough. "You sound like a man talking to his mistress, saying he's getting married."

Tommy hesitates. "You're bleeding."

"It happens." Alfie hunts in his pockets for a spare handkerchief to staunch his nose, and finds one already stained with blood. Tommy hands him a fresh handkerchief over without comment. "Go on." Wrestling aside, Tommy is never this fucking considerate, and it's making Alfie nervous. There's a guilt lurking behind it, surely. It can't be a professional slight, because that would be carried out entirely differently. So this must be personal, and he's never had personal with Tommy before. It's making him tense and it's making him angry. "Go the _fuck_ on."

"I'm running for Parliament."

Alfie roars.

Clearly having expected this, Tommy waits with an expression on his face that suggests he is barely holding on to his will to exist under the massive burden of sheer exasperation. He waits, and waits, and when Alfie is still howling with laughter, minutes later, Tommy takes a bottle of gin out from the bag under his coat, uncorks it with his teeth, and takes a swig.

"Oh, fuck," sighs Alfie. "Pass it here. Don't worry, I'll give it back. You'll need it more than I do, wearing—" And now he's off again in gales of uncontrollable laughter. "That fucking wig!"

Once this, too, has calmed down a little, Alfie shakes his head. "You're in for it now, mate. You thought I was fucking vicious, wait for the House of Lords. They'll have you nailed up somewhere, upside down, head in a bathtub, water filling up drop by fucking drop. Me, I'd just shoot you."

"What was that about shoving a six-inch nail up a man's nose?"

"'E was a fucking Italian. Doesn't count."

"So a 'pikey bastard' is above an Italian, then? That's good to know." Tommy takes another swig.

"Not exactly. But you, my friend. You're going to be a—" A few chuckles escape him. "A fucking member of Parliament. A real civilized man. Guess I'll have to show you some fucking politeness or summat." 

Tommy doesn't even bother trying to reply.

"You know, a civilized man would offer me a drink."

"You said it was too sweet."

"A civilized man would make an effort."

Tommy gets up, goes behind Alfie's desk straight to the miniature cupboard, and peruses the half-dozen bottles there. "Rum?"

"Whiskey."

"This is Irish," Tommy says, with a hint of humor.

"It's the _only_ thing you've got right. Don't get fucking conceited about it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tommy murmurs. He pours them each a glass, and they sit there for several minutes, drinking, glancing at each other now and then in silent conversation. Alfie can feel something building, but he's enjoying this, this nearly companionable time. Wants it to last. Whatever Tommy has to say, he wants it to wait.

"I killed an Irishman once," he says, matter-of-factly, almost mildly. "He had a body like a train, but I broke a lamp on his face and kicked the glass in. Guess that's why you lot like your razors so much, innit? It makes things a lot more fucking—"

"I won't be back."

Alfie looks at him. Really looks at him. And Tommy, for once, can't take it; he looks at the floorboards, at his shoes, at his glass. Drinks.

"Why? Parliament?"

Silence. A yes.

Alfie begins at a low chuckle, but soon enough, he's laughing so hard, he forgets that his nose is bleeding and throws his head back, and then he's choking just a little on his own blood, and then he's coughing, and he's leaning forward and bleeding into the handkerchief again, and laughing, and laughing, and laughing. Tommy expected laughter the first time round, but not this time. Not this time. The way he's looking at Alfie, Alfie can tell he's wondering if Alfie has gone fucking mad. Maybe he has.

"You fucking—" He can't. He can't. He starts laughing again. " _I'm_ the one. I'm the fucking one. I called the meeting for Monday."

Tommy just reaches for his cigarettes. He gets like this sometimes, chooses silence, like that's going to put a damper on this, but how could it when this is so fucking hilarious?

"You—" He points at Tommy. "You really are a motherfucking son of a fucking mother, aren't you. Jesus Christ and all his nonexistent little fucking angels. You are the worst fucking obstructionist I've ever had the displeasure of working with in my entire fucking life."

"You had plans." 

"I had the fucking opposite." Alfie wipes his eyes and takes a breath. "I was going to tell you, 'I won't be back'. I was going to leave. I am. I'm leaving, and Abraham is taking over. You know Ollie? It's his brother. Just like him, completely, except he's not an idiot, and he's taller, and he's faster..." He shakes his head. The laughter is gone now, and reality is setting in, but he sets his teeth in a smile, because that's how he wants it to go. "I was going to tell you 'I won't be back'."

Tommy breathes out smoke. "Were you."

"You can't be fucking insulted now. Jesus, look at you. You're fucking laughable, mate. You come all the way here to tell me you're out, and you have the gall to be offended when I say I want the same thing? Fucking hell."

"It's not offense, Alfie."

"What is it, then?"

"Confusion."

"What part strikes you as fucking confusing, mate?"

"Why leave?"

Alfie shrugs. "Medical shit. I'm gonna run out of blood eventually or summat."

"So get a transfusion."

"That's not how it fucking works."

"I suppose not."

Alfie looks steadily back at him as long as he can stand it. Then he claps his hands. Tommy flinches. "Oh, come on," Alfie cries. "Give us a smile. You won!" 

Tommy gets up abruptly and paces over to the window. He opens it a crack, to give himself the pretense of letting the cigarette smoke out, perhaps. The cold of the night cuts in.

Jesus, he's taking this poorly. Sometimes Alfie forgets how soft Tommy really is. All the myths and legends and he's still just a man who lost his mind over a small child, once. Alfie almost feels bad for him, but he also thinks this is unreasonable. He's the one dying after all, not Tommy.

Unreasonable or not, he walks over, leans against the wall. The cold sinks into his face and numbs his nose. "There's one thing, at least."

Tommy looks up.

"No more wars for either of us," Alfie says. "It's over."

Tommy nods. "To no more wars." They clink glasses. 

He takes a sip, Alfie doesn't. "To peace, then?" he asks.

Tommy swallows. "No."

Alfie considers this, all the way through another glass. 

"Wouldn't be any good at peace," he finally says.

"No."

So much gin and whiskey and his nose has stopped bleeding, but they are still standing by that goddamn window, still cold, cold, cold. The drinks were supposed to move them closer, but it occurs to Alfie now that their bodies will have to move in order for that distance to close, and Tommy's not going to do it, is he.

Kindness didn't work, so Alfie tries cruelty.

"If you wanted to know if you could take me, you should have tried me sooner," he says. "I could have fought you a year ago, two years ago. We could have found out."

Tommy turns away from the window, towards him. "I'd still have beaten you. Or we would have killed each other."

"You've never beaten me." Tommy says nothing, and Alfie persists, steps forward. "I gave you so many chances. You should have tried."

"Like you're trying now?"

Alfie knows he must taste like blood and his beard must scratch at Tommy's skin and in short there is nothing tender, but Tommy's lips still feel like a consolation. He doesn't know how, and doesn't care. Maybe his palm against the nape of Tommy's neck could be all right, if you ignored the cold metal of the rings. Maybe he could be all right.

This ought to be desperate, but it's luxurious. The concrete end makes some things simple.

"What do you think, still too sweet?" Tommy says, after a while. His hand rests on Alfie's arm, a cigarette smoldering out between two fingers. 

Alfie looks at him. He can't really taste the gin on Tommy's tongue, but there was a moment in there, somewhere, when he could have sworn he felt Tommy's thumb moving slow and reverent over his jaw. "Yes."

"It's a family recipe. Can't be changed."

"I know."

They linger.

It is past all decent hours and Tommy will get on that train tomorrow one way or another, but for now. For now. He closes the window.


End file.
